A Sort of Happy Something
by Mariagoner
Summary: Sometimes, happy endings don't always arrive with the greatest of ease. Larsa X Penelo, futurefic. Part of the Uses of Enchantment series


For LaXhal, with the dearest love possible. I probably should have put this up far, far, _far _before February came rolling around with all it's demands... but this piece just kept growing and growing and _growing_, until it became what it is today. But in any case, I do hope you enjoy it, Liz.

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Title: A Sort of Happy Something

Fandom: Final Fantasy XII

Pairings: Larsa X Penelo

Rating: PG-13

Summary: Sometimes, happy endings don't always arrive with the greatest of ease.

Note: Assume Larsa is about 18 and Penelo is 22 at this stage.

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There's snow on Penelo's lashes the first time Larsa asks her to marry him.

It's a moment that's a long time coming. It's a destination that has had its route carved out from the day they first met, when he had grasped her hand in his and led her to calm and safety and a strange kinship that somehow kept close two of the most unimaginably different people indeed. It's a path that's been set in place by one almost accidental re-meeting in Rozarria years afterwards, a few sessions of bonding over recalcitrant partners and even ornier kingdoms, a steady stream of kisses and at least a dozen embraces, several carefully engineered meetings that they both knew would lead to nothing but trouble but came for anyway, and hundreds of sweet, silly, sustaining letters spread throughout the years. And it's something she has been half prepared for since he first ran off with her into the enchanted woods of what served as the closest thing to a Solidor family manor on a pretext so flimsy even _he_ could not possibly think she bought it.

It's a moment she's known was long in the building and almost thwarted a thousand times over already but that's happening, right here and right now, anyway.

Therefore, she isn't quite surprised when she finds herself with her lover in the midst of a slow Archadian snow fall, watching his lips curve around the words "together" and "forever" and "marry me."

She isn't quite scared when she sees the gleam in his eyes that shows that he's up to something, now matter how ridiculously _shirty_ things can get when _Larsa_, of all people, was plotting things.

She's almost ridiculously far from displeased from when he cups his damp palms around her face and asks her if she'll have him in a way that would more of less guarantee that they'd finally have a plausible excuse for all the times his Judges have found his _dear friend_ in his room at the most implausible of hours, furiously swearing she was just here for a surprise visit and didn't they know sky pirates didn't keep to normal business hours and why were they such voyeuristic bastards anyway?

And if she didn't know better, and if he wasn't sworn to secrecy anyway, she could almost swear she was tearing up at the look on his face, at the fervid rush of his words, at the ring he was, with atypical clumsiness, trying to slide up one slender finger already.

No, Penelo isn't anywhere near unhappy the first time Larsa asks her to marry him.

And the look on his face when she covers his hands with her own and holds him near and turns him down could have broken the heart of a far stronger being.

She never thought she'd be standing in a snow-fall with a person she loved more than anything else, telling him that she just wasn't ready, that the future he wanted wasn't quite prepared for them either. But she had told him once that she'd never raise her face towards his to lie to him, and she won't do it now either, no matter how tempting it might be to say yes right now and let the world do just as it pleased. But the gulf between royal and commoner, between his bloodline and hers, between what everyone in Archadia expects their empress to be and what she is in actuality is just too deep and too wide for her to brave just yet.

She's brave, but she's not fearless, and she knows through painful experience all the myriad forms of cruelty a person can face in a position they haven't earned yet.

She knows this just as much as she knows that all of this is a moment that's been a long time coming… but that a fairy tale ending isn't quite ready for them either. And she's sure, even past the roar of blood in her ears and the heart-break of on his face, that Larsa ought to know this just as well as she.

Still, she knows from the way his previously tender eyes first widen and then narrow, that Larsa takes it as a personal matter anyway. And when he finally speaks, his voice is chill enough to drive Penelo to worry.

"May I inquire," he asks afterwards, retreating into the sort of painful formality that's always served as his shield during their painful, if infrequent, spats, "as to _why_ you declined my offer? Is it that you are… _concerned_ about the changes that might be forthcoming if you decided to become an empress? Is it that you're not quite ready to settle down with-- anyone? Or is it that, during all the times when we parted, that-- that you met someone else entirely?" And something about his still narrowed eyes tells Penelo that saying yes to that last would probably be quite dangerous for whatever poor imaginary being Larsa thought she was cuckolding him with.

For a minute, she's tempted to grab a handful of powdery white snow off the ground and rub it right in his paranoid face for even _thinking_ she'd betray him this way. But instead, she simply reaches out, curls one hand roughly about his hair (cut short now, in the style of his father-- he had left all of his brother far behind him), and proceeds to hold him until every awful possibility he raises seems to melt away against the heat of her body against his own, the rough slide of his hands against the insides of her thighs and the near constant desperation with which he always greets her kisses, as though she would fade away were he not here to anchor her to reality.

When she finally pulls away, she sees him at last smiling. And he's never been handsome in any real sense of the world-- not even when he was twelve and as fragile as a bird and weighed less than the great swords Basch had swung so gladly before her almost eight years before. He's always been too thin and lanky and sharp-boned for mere beauty and she's never wanted anything quite as much as she wanted to see the his smile greet her every day for as long she had it in her to keep living.

"No," Penelo says quietly, solemnly, as though she were already swearing a sort of sacred oath to him in the wilderness surrounding them, though there was nothing but white flurries in their wake. "No, I didn't say so for any of those reasons. It isn't a matter of being afraid of having to change, or not being ready to for marriage or-- god forbid-- finding someone else entirely. You already know you've already ruined me for anybody less mad and plotty. You know that as much as you know I love you enough that I could die of longing."

His next smile is almost sly. "Perhaps I _do_ know. But it's remarkably pleasant to be reminded once in a while, isn't it?"

"Very funny," she says, and this time she does step back and throw a snowball in his face and laugh as she watches chivalry keep him from retaliating. As much as royal scruples, and the attendant lack of privacy, might annoy her, they _do_ come in handy some days.

On the heel of that thought, Penelo's renegade smile fades. " But Larsa-- you know just as well that the world doesn't always let us have what we want. Hell, you know that even better than me. Do you really think we could make it despite… _everything_?"

And he knows what she's trying to say, truly and sincerely, when she mentions everything. And she was right previously, when she had thought that he knew what obstacles faced them even better than she did. He was to the palace born and for service bred and he knows just what people still expected from those of his half-accursed family.

He knows that Penelo shan't ever be what the upper-crust of Archadia expect from their Empress, won't ever fully conform to the expectations set by all the previous consorts to the highest throne in Ivalice. She is, as much as he hates to admit it, _right_ to worry about the public reception she would receive if she decided to accept his offer fully. She had absolutely nothing in common with the brides that the men in his family tended to take; she had not the blue blood of conquered kings flowing in her veins, nor the enticement of powerful familial connections or the promise of a large dowry.

And even beyond that, there's much to make her patently unsuitable to be his wife. There was nothing about her appearance or her manner or her origin or her station or her temperament that would make Penelo the typical consort she thought she had to be. She was a slum-girl who had grown up in the streets of Rabanstre; she was an urchin who had learned a mean right hook from her five brothers and to cast magicks by her formidable mother and had spent her formative years fighting her way across Ivalice and back, helping kingdoms reform and lost princesses regain their crowns and long awaited treasures find their way to the black market once more.

She had no idea how to sew a proper rosette onto a ceremonial robe or charm men by singing arias as she played the lute or even how to tilt her head _just so_ in order to wear a circlet properly. She had a terrible habit of laughing too loud and loving too hard and giving everything she had to everything she did in a way that absolutely defied dignity.

And compared to almost every other woman who had crossed his path as a potential bride in the last two years he has spent loving her, she was _real_ and _alive_, as lovely and elemental as earth and air and fire, and so very vital to him that he knew something in him would die if he let her go quietly.

She isn't anywhere near what the Archadian people expect from their empress. But then, with _his_ wooly-headed notions of offering peace to a nation grown strong on the blood of conquered enemies, he didn't exactly fit the definition of a normal Archadian emperor either. And he knows better than to let the present state of the world dictate his will, to let the weight of tradition and noblesse oblige to oppress him and his get forever, to stop believing that the impossible can be conjured up by even imperfect beings.

"I already do, Penelo. I wouldn't have asked you if I didn't. We could do damn near anything we pleased if we believe in each other without breaking."

When she rests her head against his in response, almost laughing at the resolve in his voice, his next words came as a rush against her chilled cheek. "And if we go about this slowly and carefully and being crafting an image for you to suit our needs-- lady sky pirate or not you've done a great deal of good over the past few years-- and if we can start publicizing some of your notable deeds… if we could do that and begin to organize a few more pretty public services and somehow find a way to formally introduce you to Archadian society… Damn it all, I should have considered this earlier, right after we had finished with our first-- Well, you already know of our first. And you know of what will still face us afterwards. But there's far more hope in this endeavor than it might seem at first blink."

She's gotten quite used to Larsa thinking out loud to her over the past two years and not understanding a bit of it, though nothing, but _nothing_, can compare to some of the down-right alarming murmurs he makes when near sleep; nonetheless, something in her still wants to rise up and _sing_ when he looks at her with that hope in his eyes, when that tremble in his smile, as though she and she alone is able to give him what he needs. "And if it all goes as planned, Penelo, perhaps… just perhaps, you needn't give me an answer so quickly, take all the time you need to ponder this over… perhaps you will be willing to _reconsider_ my question in a few years?"

She doesn't quite know whether he's asking or saying and doesn't care much either. Her answer is the same either way.

"If it changes," she says, smiling a little, fingers already busy tugging over his ridiculously poufy sleeves, something she has long since learned is a terrifying constant in his wardrobe. "If you'll let me help you, instead of going with it all on your shoulders like the world's frilliest martyr. And if you don't drive me mad while doing everything, of course. Which is always a great and terrible possibility with you, honestly."

"_If_ it changes? _If_ I let you? And _if_ I do and don't and shan't and won't?" And beneath the mock-outrage, there is a thread of hope beneath his voice that she has always loved more than anything. "Please don't scorn my attempts at having you for my own just yet, Penelo-- I might still have a few surprises up my sleeve."

"They're big enough to hold them, god knows," she agrees, laughing. And forty years from now, long after she finally marries him and while she is dying during their last flight away from Archades, she will take his hand in hers as she has done a million times before and tell him that, no matter what madness faced her, she never regretted saying yes eventually. "Being in love with you wasn't always easy," she'll tell him, hair white-gold and face bracketed with laugh lines and eyes still as bright and keen as ever they'd been. "In fact, I thought I was a fool to even consider it quite often. But despite it all, in the end, we still ended up smashing all the barriers in between us, didn't we? In the end, despite it all, we still set each other free."

And when her fingers finally slacken in his and she closes her eyes towards him for the last time, he will take her hand in his and kiss the finger that holds her wedding ring and realize that his wife always _did_ see just a bit more than he did. Because every moment he had spent with her over the last forty years--

_(--every moment that had passed by with her throwing breakfast pastries at his head when he woke her up too early; or laughing at the increasing eccentric head-dresses he had to wear as proof of office; or charming rival rulers to the point where half of them wanted to spirit her off ; or dragging their children off to hunts with their creatively tongued (to say the least) god-father; or trying to teach their grandchildren how to run from an entite before they could even walk; or simply remaining that bright, sharp, sweet, strange creature that he could never quite understand but loved anyway--)_

--every moment had been a moment he had spent free from the world he had been trapped in from birth onwards. She would tell him on their wedding day, far back in the past and just ahead in the future, that love was never easy but that love would always set them free from the cages they'd been placed in long before their lives even began. And when she died, far ahead in the future and just back in the past, it was a truth he would finally grasp fully.

But for now, they are merely two people huddled in the snow, one a man who has just asked for his lady's hand in marriage and the other a woman who has turned him down quietly. And if his voice had wavered when he had first asked his question, and if it had trembled even more when he had asked her why, she understands completely, wants to explain even more throughly.

"I love you," she tells him, already running one stray finger through his slightly snow-damp hair, "and even though this probably just serves as proof of madness, I'll likely marry you in heart-beat when I can. So bring on your surprises whenever you'd like. I'm prepared to meet them fully."

And he closes his eyes for just a minute and feels a minute of sheer frustration over his empire's present and his lady sky pirate's past. But he's always been patient and persistent and almost too clever by half and, no matter how often Penelo has threatened to smother him in his sleep for just those qualities, they make him near certain that he will win both her and his people over soon enough.

"I will." And now quite recovered from his initial dismay, he pressed on valiantly. "And so, once I _make _everything around us ready, I hope you'll be prepared to say 'yes' the first time I ask again. Because if I know my line as well as I know you, I'm sure the famous Solidor family charm will melt even your heart eventually."

And she's always been fast on her feet but somehow, she's never been quite fast enough to elude him, or even hide the small smile that just barely flickers past her face.

"You're awfully cocky for someone who just had himself turned down," Penelo retorted tartly, though she softened when he bought his forehead to rest once more against hers. "And I'm afraid that... that you might have to wait a bit for me to give you another answer even afterwards. Larsa… even beyond all the Archadian what-have-you, I still have plenty of things I have to do before I lose my mind enough to agree." There's regret in her face, but a sort of steely resolve as well. "Before I can agree to… _anything_, really, I need to help Vaan with so many things. We went over enough craziness trying to find Baltheir and Fran in the last couple of years and we still need to rebuild Balfonheim after it got leveled to the grounds. And that's not even going into the whole winged street orphan thing…"

Then she takes a deep breath and he sees her face quiet and intent and sweetly blurred amidst the last remnants of the winter that swirled around the both of them. "So, will you wait for me? Even if it takes more time than you want, will you wait?"

It's one of the most foolish questions she'd ever asked him and, even through the hurt of knowing that their happiness would be delayed even further, he finds himself _smiling_.

"I'll wait," he tells her, because he does not know what the future holds, and would not change a single thing even if he did. "I'll wait 'til the years fall by and leave nothing, if that is what proves necessary. I'll wait 'til the end of the world for you, if you wish that from me."

In another heart-beat, she wrapped against him once more, helpless and happy and sodden and shuddering, and neither of them yet know that two years later, she will finally be able to say yes. Neither knows that forty years after that, she will die with him by her side, leaving behind the legend of an empress who had not and never tried to be everything that the world expected... and an emperor and an empire who had loved her all the same.

"And I'll say yes," she says, softly, to her lover and her future husband, "as soon as I can. I mean, at least as long as you don't show up to the actual wedding with that weird butterfly... looking... head... dress… _thing_ you like to wear so often. Really, who was it that even _designed_ that? Did they have some sort of grudge against your family? Because honestly, I can't think of a better way of getting back at somebody than--"

For the sake of their future marriage, Larsa cuts her off with a well timed kiss. And for now, there is only snow on her lashes and the warmth of his body curled up against hers and the promise of a future still waiting for the both of them to step within it.

And that was more than enough for the time being.

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_Author's Note_: Damn. I think writing this thing on top of work and a thousand other pieces of craziness might have actually killed a bit of me. Right now, I'm not even sure if this is actually a half-way decent fic that has the potential to grow into a series that could follow Larsa and Penelo around as they go about reconciling their two different worlds now that they're done saving it.

So really, any comments, reviews and criticisms would be _very_ much appreciated. I especially want to know... do you think that this piece keeps Larsa and Penelo reasonably in character? (Larsa's dialogue, as always, has the ability to _slay_ me in the crafting.) Do they actually seem like a real couple in love, ready and willing to fight for one another? And do they seem as though they have a chance in the midst of all the obstacles in front of them? I dearly want to get on with the next, and even more convoluted, phase in things... ;)


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